Russia Relocates Strategic Bombers To Protect From Ukraine Drone Swarms

Following Ukraine’s long-range drone assault on June 1st which was dubbed ‘Operation Spider’s Web’ – and which resulted in the destruction of at least several aircraft, including strategic bombers - Russia has relocated dozens of strategic bombers to remote airbases, new satellite imagery shows.

Ukraine had claimed that during the daring operation airbases Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ryazan, and Ivanovo, were hit, damaging or else completely destroying up to 41 aircraft, including Tu-95s, Tu-22M3s, and A-50s. However, Russian media sources have repeatedly said these numbers are exaggerated, and in some instances have claimed decommissioned and inactive planes were hit.

The Russian military is scrambling to reduce the vulnerability and exposure of the country’s most advanced and expensive aircraft, as Ukrainian drones have continued to come over the border on a nightly basis, sometimes in waves of hundreds.

The air force’s bomber fleet is also likely to be rotated more often, including to remote or even previously inactive airfields.

According to analysis of the new satellite imagery in the Amsterdam-based Moscow Times:

Satellite imagery analyzed by the OSINT research group AviVector shows that all Tu-160 bombers previously stationed at the Belaya airbase in Irkutsk and the Olenya airbase in Murmansk had vacated their positions by early June.

Two of those bombers were redeployed to Anadyr in the Chukotka region, three to Yelizovo in the Kamchatka region and another three to the Borisoglebskoye airbase in the republic of Tatarstan.

Tu-22M3 and Tu-95MS aircraft were also relocated from Murmansk to bases in Tatarstan and the Amur and Saratov regions, as well as to Mozdok in the republic of North Ossetia — a facility that had not been actively used by the Russian military in recent years.

Example of the new satellite imagery evaluated by AviVector…

For another example of what looks like a Moscow decision to move these valuable military assets as far away from Ukraine as possible is as follows:

Located on the desolate Chukotka Peninsula, the airfield is around 410 miles from Alaska and was set up during the Cold War.

The supersonic Tu-160 bombers can carry nuclear weapons and are by far the most expensive in Russia’s inventory, with a price tag of around $500 million per unit. By comparison, the B-52 Stratofortress, the mainstay of the US’s bomber fleet, has an estimated value of roughly $94 million.

‘Spider’s Web’ added some insult to injury given that in some cases some of Russia’s most high-dollar aircraft were hit by “cheap drones” which had first been shipped into Russia “right under the nose” of Russian security forces.

The drones had been activated once near the airbase targets while on modified wooden cabins mounted on the back of lorries. It seems that in many cases the very truck drivers were seemingly unaware of their role in the elaborate covert operation.